Politicians have jumped on the anti-pork barrel bandwagon, with the President himself saying Friday that it is time to abolish the Priority Development Assistance Fund, the proper name for pork barrel.
In its place, President Benigno Aquino III promised “a new mechanism to address the needs of your constituents and sectors, in a manner that is transparent, methodical, and rational, and not susceptible to abuse or corruption.”
Members of Congress will still get to identify priority projects for their districts and constituencies but will have to go through the budget process.
“If approved, these projects will be earmarked as line items, under the programs of your National Government. In this way, they will be enacted into law as part of our National Budget—every line, every peso, and every project open to scrutiny, as with all other programs of your government,” he said.
This development may put a damper on a planned “protest picnic” against the pork barrel on Monday. As of Friday, more than 13,000 have indicated on the event’s Facebook page that they will attend the non-partisan protest.
But some are already making other plans for Monday. One participant, a former official at the Department of Tourism, said on his Facebook page that he might play golf instead. People’s rage also seems to have shifted from the corruption in the PDAF system to the selection of Ben Affleck to play Batman.
Organizers have acknowledged the President’s announcement as a win but point out that there is more to the protest than just having the PDAF abolished.
Aside from abolition of the pork barrel system–something that has yet to actually happen–the protest is also about holding those involved in the questionable PDAF allocations found by the Commission on Audit accountable.
One of the demands that the thousands who have said they will go to the protest is to have “the senators and congressmen in the Pork Barrel Fund Scam investigated and charged accordingly, with full media coverage for the people to see.”
As one post on the event Facebook page says, “everyone says the fight is over. Oh, no. We’ve only just begun.”
—
Photo: Handtell
